3 Deputies Shot, Suspect Killed In Northern California Standoff

Three sheriff’s deputies were shot and a suspect was killed in a shooting that followed an hours-long standoff in Northern California, according to the local sheriff’s office. The shooting happened Thursday at a home in Knightsen, the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. The area is an unincorporated community about 50 miles northeast of San Francisco. Deputies were called to a home for reported domestic violence just before 10 a.m., the release said. A woman who said she had been held hostage overnight was able to escape, while the man was barricaded inside, the sheriff’s office said. The office said the suspect shot at deputies throughout the day. The county’s SWAT and hostage negotiation teams spent the afternoon and early evening asking the suspect to surrender, according to the statement. The suspect, who was not immediately identified, came out of the house just before 9 p.m. and shot three members of the SWAT team, and the deputies returned fire, the sheriff’s office said.

Gun Violence Is Surging In Cities, And Hitting Communities Of Color Hardest

For many major U.S. cities, this year has been marked by bullets and bloodshed. Over 1,500 people have been shot in Chicago, almost 900 in Philadelphia, and more than 500 in New York City so far in 2020 — all up significantly from the same time last year (1,018 in Chicago, 701 in Philadelphia and 355 in New York). The surge in shootings has been particularly painful for communities of color, which have disproportionately endured the weight of the COVID-19 crisis, the economic recession and social unrest following the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis in May. In New York City, after the number of shooting victims more than doubled from June 2019 to this June, every person who has been shot this July, nearly 100 in total, has been a member of the minority community, according to the police department. And in June, 97 percent of the shooting victims were minorities, the department said.

LAPD Seeks Driver Who Fled After Hitting, Killing 70-Year-Old Van Nuys Man In Valley Glen

The driver of a sedan that plowed into a 70-year-old man, killing him on a Valley Glen street late Wednesday night, was being sought by Los Angeles detectives, police said. The gray or metallic-silver 2007 Saturn Ion was seen with “extensive damage to the front of the vehicle” as its driver left without stopping to help the man, according to a Los Angeles Police Department statement. Detectives in LAPD’s Valley Traffic Division said the 70-year-old, a Van Nuys resident who lived in the area, was crossing the road at Oxnard Street and Cantaloupe Avenue just before 9 p.m. Wednesday. The Saturn was headed eastbound on Oxnard when police said the vehicle hit the man. The driver continued eastbound after the crash. Police said one of the sedan’s side view mirrors and “other identifiable vehicle parts” were found at the scene of the crash.

5 Arrested In Killing Of Rapper Pop Smoke During Hollywood Hills Home-Invasion Robbery

Authorities believe rising rapper Pop Smoke was shot and killed during a Los Angeles home-invasion robbery in February after his social media posts led five suspects to the house he was renting, police said after detectives arrested the group Thursday morning. Los Angeles police had initially discounted a robbery theory in the days after the 20-year-old rapper’s death Feb. 19 at a home in the Hollywood Hills. Pop Smoke’s legal name is Bashar Barakah Jackson. Capt. Jonathan Tippet, who oversees the Los Angeles Police Department’s elite Robbery-Homicide Division, said three men and two teenage boys likely went to the home because they knew Pop Smoke was there from social media posts. They stole items from the home, though Tippet said he could not divulge what was taken. The teens were 15 and 17 years old.

Baldwin Hills Man Charged In Massive Luxury Car Lease Scam

A Baldwin Hills man was arrested Wednesday on federal allegations he ran a con on dozens of victims in which he convinced them he could find people to take over the leases on their luxury cars. Geoffrey Hull, 40, was arrested by Homeland Security Investigations agents on six counts of wire fraud, the U.S. Attorney’s Office reported Thursday. Hull operated out of offices on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. According to prosecutors, Hull ran several companies through which he targeted people who were looking to find others to take over the leases on their cars. CBS2 investigative reporter David Goldstein has reported on Hull’s activities twice over the past 11 years — the second time in 2019.

4 Arrested In Looting Of Santa Monica Patagonia; Stolen Safe Recovered

Two men and two women have been arrested in connection with looting a Patagonia store in Santa Monica after protests turned violent on May 31. Patagonia, at 1344 4th St., was damaged and looted on May 31 by several suspects who were caught on surveillance video, removing a safe from the business. Images showed several people dragging the safe down stairs and loading it onto a hand truck. Santa Monica police says detectives served several search and arrest warrants at different locations in Los Angeles County during the investigation, and identified six suspects. The four arrested include 27-year-old Ulises Alcantara Juarez, 27; Alfred Fernando Bello, 24; Yesenia Enriquez Tejada, 25; and Debbie Lujan, 23.

Authorities Circulate Photos Of Suspect In Alleged Attack Of 80-Year-Old Man

Authorities Thursday circulated photos a suspect and possible accomplice in the alleged assault of an 80-year-old man in the bathroom of a Lancaster grocery store. The assault occurred about 8:30 a.m. at the grocery store in the 1000 block of East Avenue J, near 10th Street, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lancaster Station. Investigators believe the victim was assaulted and robbed by a Black man between 20 and 25 years old, about 5 feet, 8 inches tall, and approximately 250 pounds, the sheriff’s department reported. He was wearing a light-colored sleeveless T-shirt, white shorts and a black mask with a design of white fangs. The second person in the photos is a woman whom investigators believe accompanied the man to the store.

Six More Counts Of Sex Assault, Battery Filed Against Former USC Gynecologist George Tyndall

Los Angeles County prosecutors have filed six more counts of sexual assault and battery against disgraced USC gynecologist George Tyndall, who was arrested last year after he was accused of sexual misconduct by hundreds of former students. Tyndall, 73, was charged with five counts of sexual penetration of an unconscious person and one count of sexual battery by fraud in an amended complaint made public Thursday, according to a news release issued by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. The longtime physician was arrested in June 2019 and charged with 29 felonies based on allegations of sexual misconduct made by 16 women regarding incidents between 2009 and 2016. Detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery-Homicide Division presented 145 cases to prosecutors concerning the alleged sexual abuse of Tyndall’s former patients, but many were outside the statute of limitations.

SoCal Brothers Ordered To Pay Nearly $1M For Tax Evasion

Two Los Angeles-area brothers were ordered Thursday to pay nearly $1 million in restitution and serve three years on probation for tax evasion related to their clothing company. Derek and Justin Stradley — owners and operators of Plact Bros LLC in Valencia — pleaded guilty in Superior Court to multiple felonies for failing to report more than $6.7 million in taxable sales over a period of nearly 13 years and nearly $1 million in gross income over a period of two years, according to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. “When you rip off California’s taxpayers, there are consequences,” Becerra said. “The Stradley brothers did just that and now they’re paying the price. Tax evasion hurts the state’s efforts to provide public services and cheats businesses that do things the right way. At the California Department of Justice, we stand ready to enforce the rules and take on bad actors in the underground economy across the state.”

Public Safety News

LA County COVID-19 Deaths Rise Again; Will Tougher Stay-At-Home Orders Return?

With another 50 deaths due to the coronavirus, Los Angeles County's public health director warned again Thursday that case numbers, positivity rates and hospitalizations are continuing to rise to levels not seen since the onset of the pandemic. Whether the worsening numbers will prompt a return to tougher Safer At Home orders and business closures remained undetermined, with Barbara Ferrer insisting that while she does not want to see such restrictions imposed again, nothing is off the table. "Nothing can be off the table in the pandemic," she said. "There's too much unknown and there's lots of things that could happen that could put us in much worse shape, including, you know, some serious mutations of this virus that make it more dangerous. So I would never be the person that's going to say, 'absolutely, out of the question, we can never go back to Safer At Home.'"

Record Day Of Coronavirus Deaths In California Raises New Alarms

Conditions continued to deteriorate in many parts of California on Wednesday with a surge of new coronavirus cases as well as a troubling rise in COVID-19 deaths. The state recorded its highest single-day coronavirus death toll Wednesday, with 149 fatalities reported, according to a Los Angeles Times county-by-county tally. That eclipsed the previous highest daily death toll, 132, recorded May 19, according to The Times’ California coronavirus tracker. Los Angeles County recorded its worst daily coronavirus death toll in at least a month, which may be the result of increased disease transmission that probably began around Memorial Day as the economy reopened and people began going to social gatherings and dining out. The county’s single-day death toll of 61 was the highest since June 2, when 62 deaths were reported.